This is my post on #freewriters3024 #dailyprompt nothing up my sleeve hosted by 
In the bustling market town of Nnewi, Anambra State, where the air smelled of fresh palm oil, roasted yam, and the sharp tang of new Ankara cloth, lived a young man named Emeka Okoye. Everyone called him Emeka Mgba—Emeka the Wrestler—not because he was particularly strong, but because he had a habit of wrestling with problems until they gave up.
Emeka sold phone accessories under a zinc shade near the main junction. His stall was small, but his dreams were wide. He wanted to open a proper shop one day, maybe even import the latest iPhones from Lagos or Aba. But money was tight, customers haggled like it was an Olympic sport, and his elder brother in Onitsha kept promising to send "something small" that never arrived.
One dusty afternoon, a stranger appeared. The man wore a faded agbada that had once been cream but was now the color of harmattan sky. He carried no bag, no phone, just a walking stick carved with tiny faces that seemed to wink when no one looked. He stopped at Emeka's stall and asked for a charger.
"Which one, sir?" Emeka asked, spreading out his best cables.
The man smiled, teeth very white against his dark skin. "The one that works even when there's no NEPA light."
Emeka laughed. "Sir, na magic you dey find?"
"Maybe," the man replied. He rolled up both sleeves of his agbada slowly, turning his arms this way and that. "See? Nothing up my sleeve. No charm, no juju, no hidden wire. Just me."
Emeka shrugged. "Okay o. Take this one. Best quality, original Anker."
The man paid exactly the price Emeka asked—no bargaining—and then leaned closer. "Boy, you get problem?"
Emeka hesitated. In Anambra, people didn't just announce their troubles to strangers. But something about the man's calm eyes made him speak. "My rent is due next week. Landlord don dey threaten fire and brimstone. My stock finish small, customers dey reduce because of this new Okada ban wey scatter everywhere. I dey manage, but e no easy."
The stranger nodded. "Nothing up my sleeve," he repeated, almost like a promise. Then he tapped his walking stick three times on the ground. "Tomorrow morning, come to the old mango tree behind St. Mary's Church by 6 a.m. Bring nothing. Just yourself."
Emeka wanted to laugh it off, but the man was already walking away, swallowed by the market crowd.
That night Emeka barely slept. He thought of village stories—how the old dibias sometimes tested people's faith with strange instructions. Was this one of them? Or just another area boy playing pranks?
At 5:45 a.m., he was there under the mango tree, dew soaking his slippers. The stranger arrived exactly at six, sleeves rolled up again.
"Nothing up my sleeve," he said for the third time. Then he pointed to a small heap of dried leaves under the tree. "Pick one."
Emeka did. It was ordinary.
"Now crush it."
Emeka crushed it. A faint sweet smell rose, like ripe udara fruit.
"Blow it toward the east, where the sun is waking."
Emeka blew. The powder scattered like gold dust in the first light.
The stranger smiled. "Go back to your stall. Sell what you have left. By evening, you go see."
Emeka returned, half-convinced it was nonsense. But he opened his stall anyway. The morning was slow—two customers, one fake Tecno charger returned. Then, around noon, a small miracle began.
A woman in red gele stopped, bought three chargers, then called her sister who came and bought five more. A Okada rider who usually never bought anything suddenly needed a power bank "sharp sharp." By 2 p.m., a young man in suit from Lagos pulled up in a Camry and ordered twenty pieces for his office boys. Word spread like wildfire in harmattan: "Emeka get original stock wey last!"
By evening, Emeka's table was nearly empty, his purse heavy with naira notes. Enough to pay the rent, restock, and even keep some aside.
He ran back to the mango tree at dusk, hoping to thank the stranger. But the man was gone. Only the walking stick remained, leaning against the trunk. Emeka picked it up. The tiny carved faces now looked like they were laughing.
He rolled up his own sleeves, looked at his empty arms, and whispered to the evening breeze, "Nothing up my sleeve... but thanks to whoever you be."
From that day, whenever someone asked Emeka how business was booming, he would smile, push up his sleeves, and say:
"Nothing up my sleeve—just hard work, small luck, and maybe one old man who knew how to make people believe again."
And in Nnewi market, they still tell the story of Emeka Mgba, the boy who wrestled with nothing and won everything.